apparently apollo 17 broke all the records, it was the longest mission and they brought back the most lunar samples and longest time in lunar orbit and simply amazing mission and so, you know, in early december here in 2012 to celebrate 40 years, it makes me really proud of what i do today. >> and you are still doing it. you're very, very involved with the program, and is the glass half full or half empty, as far as the future of space exploration? >> well, i'm a glass, a glassful kind of person, and i think that is the kind of people that we have in the space program. some look back at the times and they think, well, they did so much then and our steps are slower, shorter or more frustrating now. part of that's true. it's a different time, a different political arena and it was a political race, and if you needed it for apollo, then you got it. that's not our environment, but the environment that we're in right now, we have to balance the needs of everybody, we have to spend our money in the places it really needs to be spent and balance that and so the steps that we take are sort of